Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Bill and Deputy Browne on bringing it forward. I have said many times in the House there is no colour, class, creed or religion, and there should be no politics, when it comes to mental health and suicide prevention, because it affects everybody across the board. We truly have an absolutely huge amount of work to do to improve the protection of the rights of patients. This Bill goes a small but important way towards that goal. It should be the beginning of a process, which is immediately followed by the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and all the reform thereafter to live up to that convention. It is too long coming and we will not stand for any more undue delays.

I ask that everyone in the House join me in this demand, especially members of Fianna Fáil who have the ear of Cabinet. A lot of work has been done to highlight the deficiencies in existing legislation by groups such as Mental Health Reform, which published an excellent point by point response to the expert group on the Mental Health Act, but even this expert review was largely ignored, with just one of the 165 recommendations implemented, as has been mentioned in the House already, and no expression of intent from the Government to change it.

I said on Second Stage that we need an overhaul of patients' rights and an end to the violation of the human rights of patients in mental health services, as well as an end to the paternalistic system that places the final say in the planning of care in the hands of psychiatrists, regardless of the wishes of patients. Involuntary patients do not necessarily lack capacity, which in itself is a somewhat problematic concept. Involuntary patients deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and equality. We would also like to see the inclusion of a statutory right for all people who enter an approved centre, voluntarily or otherwise, to be supported in drafting advanced health care directives that place consent and honesty at the centre of care. We have an amendment on this which we will push on Report Stage in the Seanad. I have spoken to the Minister of State on this topic, and I hope it can find support across the House, and I appeal to the House now as we need to improve services. It is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the Bill published by Deputy Browne.

I make a plea to the Minister of State, and especially to Fianna Fáil, which holds great sway over the Government. Do not settle for crumbs. We need major investment in our services, as has been spoken about. Those problems that are most acute are due to underfunding. We have been stressing funding, but it is very simple: if we do not have all of the ingredients of the cake we cannot make the cake.

It is not rocket science. I ask the Ministers, Deputies and all those listening to spend the next few months convincing people within their own parties and within the Government. A figure of €15 million or some other paltry sum does not do enough. As it merely keeps the system standing still, we need more investment. This is more important than any deal the parties do. We will deal with the politics in the Chamber but when we are dealing with people, we must invest in our future. It might be our children or, please God, our grandchildren. We need to create a better, more educated and safer society where people do not get to a point where they have lost faith in the system, their own lives and their families and want to end it. It should never happen. We have a duty as legislators to drive this as far as we can. If, some day, each one of us, not as legislators but as human beings, can stand here and say proudly that we supported this, we did the right thing and we saw it grow and come to fruition, everybody inside and outside the House can be very proud. One of the most important things in life is that no member of any family should bury their children. No child should end up having no faith in life. They should be looking forward to living it to the fullest. Again, it comes back to this Bill. We must drive it forward. If we are not clear in this regard, we will know it is our choice but, more importantly, it is the choice of the parties in Government. We should remember that people will not be forgiving if we get this wrong.

See this speech in context